Training Needs Assessment
The Region V Public Health Training Center (RVPHTC) is conducting a training needs assessment to determine the workforce development needs of public health professionals throughout Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The RVPHTC is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration and seeks to advance the skills of the current and future public health workforce to improve population health outcomes.
This survey is being administered to health officers of local health departments in the region to complete on behalf of their agencies.
Why does this survey matter?
The goal of this survey is to identify and prioritize training needs across our region. We will use the findings to inform workforce development opportunities. We want to help health departments and their employees to become more prepared in skills that they feel are needed for their work.
How does it work?
• The intended respondent is the local health department’s health officer. You may choose to delegate the survey to another staff member (or team) who is familiar with the workforce development needs of the organization.
• If you delegate the survey to a new point person, please let us know their contact information so we can send follow-up emails accordingly. You can do so by emailing Phoebe Kulik at [email protected].
• The survey should take 5-10 minutes to complete. It is available to you from January 13-31, 2020.
• Please complete the survey in one sitting and only complete the survey once for your agency.
• Individuals who complete the survey will receive a promo code to obtain free continuing education credits for one of our training offerings at www.rvphtc.org. All of our training content is offered for free, and we typically charge a small fee for continuing education credits.
Your participation in this survey is completely voluntary. Data will be shared only in the aggregate and comments shared in a de-identified manner.
If you have any questions about the training needs assessment survey, please contact Phoebe Kulik, Program Manager, at [email protected].
This survey was reviewed by the University of Michigan Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board (HUM00174224) and determined to be exempt from IRB oversight.
Supplemental Digital Content
Survey. Region V Public Health Training Center Training Needs Assessment
Health Department Characteristics 1. Please select your state.
Illinois (1) Indiana (2) Michigan (3) Minnesota (4) Ohio (5) Wisconsin (6)
2. Please select your health department.
[Dropdown provided for each state]2.1. If your health department was not listed above, please identify it here.
3. Approximately how many individuals currently work for your local health department? Please include all full-time, part-time, contractual, and seasonal employees.
Less than 5 individuals (1) 5-9 individuals (2)
10-24 individuals (3) 25-49 individuals (4) 50-99 individuals (5) 100-199 individuals (6) 200 or more individuals (7)
4. For the following activities, please indicate if you do any of the following for any of your staff. Select all that apply.
Require continuing education (1)
Include education and training objectives in performance reviews (2) Pay travel/registration fees for trainings (3)
Allow use of working hours to participate in training (4) Provide on-site training (5)
Have staff position(s) responsible for internal training (6) Provide recognition of achievement (7)
Other (8) ________________________________________________
Health Department Workforce Training Needs
For the following sets of questions,
please reflect on the ability of your agency’s staff to apply the stated skills in their day-to-day work. Please report if the skill level in your workforce is sufficiently meeting your agency’s needs. By sufficiently, we mean having an adequate number of staff who are proficient (able to perform independently) or expert (able to assist or teach others) in your agency.For example, having just a few staff proficient or expert in a given skill area, such as epidemiology, may be sufficient for a smaller agency. For others, one or two proficient staff would not be sufficient to meet agency needs.
Definitions for response options:
• Strongly Disagree: Despite skilled staff, the need for this skill in your agency is largely unmet
• Disagree: Despite skilled staff, there is a meaningful gap in ability to meet the need for this skill in your agency
• Agree: Skilled staff are available and can generally meet the need for this skill in your agency
• Strongly Agree: Skilled staff are available and fully meet the need for this skill in your agency
• I Don’t Know: Unaware of the level of proficiency of staff to meet this need in your agency [Instructions repeated for each new page of this section]
5. The professional public health workforce at my agency is sufficiently able to:
Strongly
Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Agree (3) Strongly
Agree (4) I Don’t Know (5) Assess the external drivers in the
agency’s environment that may influence their work (1)
Describe the importance of engaging community members in the design and implementation of programs to improve health in a community (2) Support inclusion of health equity and social justice principles into planning for program and service delivery (3)
Identify evidence-based approaches to address public health issues (4) Describe the value of a diverse public health workforce (5)
Describe how public health funding mechanisms support agency programs and services (6)
6. The professional public health workforce at my agency is sufficiently able to:
Strongly
Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Agree (3) Strongly
Agree (4) I Don’t Know (5) Collaborate with public health
person nel across the agency to improve the health of the community (1) Collect valid data for use in decision making (2)
Describe how social determinants of health impact the health of individu- als, families, and the overall community (3)
Describe the value of an agency business plan (4)
Deliver socially, culturally, and linguistically appropriate programs and customer service (5)
Describe the value of community strate- gic planning that results in a community health assessment or community health improvement plan (6)
7. The professional public health workforce at my agency is sufficiently able to:
Strongly
Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Agree (3) Strongly
Agree (4) I Don’t Know (5) Communicate in a way that persuades
others to act (1)
Describe the influence of internal changes on organizational practices (2)
Identify appropriate sources of data and information to assess the health of a community (3)
Describe financial analysis methods applicable to program and service delivery (4)
Effectively target communications to different audiences (5)
Describe their individual role in improving the health of the commu- nity served by the agency (6)
8. The professional public health workforce at my agency is sufficiently able to:
Strongly
Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Agree (3) Strongly
Agree (4) I Don’t Know (5) Engage community assets and
resources to improve health in a community (1)
Describe the agency’s strategic priorities, mission, and vision (2) Participate in quality improvement processes for agency programs and services (3)
Apply content knowledge specific to their programmatic areas (4) Apply technical skills specific to their programmatic areas (5)
9. Please list any other general knowledge, skills, or abilities not listed previously that you believe your workforce needs further training in.
10. Please identify any areas where you would like support from the Region V Public Health Training Center. Select all that apply.
Training (1)
Workforce development (2) Student interns (3)
Connections to academia for research or subject matter expertise (4) Succession planning (5)
Accreditation support (6)
Other (please specify) (7) ________________________________________________
If you selected training, which delivery methods are you interested in?
Select all that apply.
Webinar (1) Self-paced (2) In-person (3)
Resource guides/toolkits/job aids (4)
If you selected accreditation support, what type of support would be useful?
Health Department Workforce Development & Training Network
11. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
National Organizations
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Region V Public Health Training
Center (RVPHTC) (1)
American Public Health Association (APHA) (2)
National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) (3)
National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) (4) Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) (5) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (6)
National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) (7)
National Council for Behavioral Health (8)
de Beaumont Foundation (9) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) (10)
[State-level agencies are displayed by respondent’s state in the pages that follow.]
12. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
State-Level Organizations [Illinois]
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Illinois Department of Public Health
(IDPH) (1)
Illinois Public Health Association (IPHA) (2)
Illinois Primary Health Care Association (IPHCA) (3)
Illinois Public Health Institute (IPHI) (4) Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium (NIPHC) (5) Southern Illinois Public Health Consortium (SIPHC) (6)
Illinois Association of Public Health Administrators (IAPHA) (7)
Illinois Society for Public Health Education (ISOPHE) (8)
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health (including the MidAmerica Center for Public Health Practice) (9)
Illinois Environmental Health Association (IEHA) (10)
12. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
State-Level Organizations [Indiana]
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Indiana State Department of Health
(ISDH) (1)
Indiana Public Health Association (IPHA) (2)
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Indiana Rural Health Association
(IRHA) (3)
Indiana Primary Health Care Association (IPHCA) (4)
Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health (5)
Indiana Society for Public Health Education (IN SOPHE) (6) Indiana Environmental Health Association (IEHA) (7)
12. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
State-Level Organizations [Michigan]
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Michigan Department of Health and
Human Services (MDHHS) (1) Michigan Association for Local Public Health (MALPH) (2)
Michigan Public Health Association (MPHA) (3)
Michigan Primary Care Association (MPCA) (4)
Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) (5)
Michigan Environmental Health Association (MEHA) (6)
University of Michigan School of Public Health (7)
Great Lakes Chapter of the Society for Public Health Education (GLC SOPHE) (8)
12. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
State-Level Organizations [Minnesota]
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Minnesota Department of Health
(MDH) (1)
Minnesota Rural Health Association (MRHA) (2)
Minnesota Public Health Association (MPHA) (3)
Local Public Health Association of Minnesota (LPHA) (4)
Minnesota Association of Community Health Centers (MNACHC) (5) University of Minnesota School of Public Health (6)
Minnesota Society for Public Health Education (MN SOPHE) (7)
Minnesota Environmental Health Association (MEHA) (8)
12. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
State-Level Organizations [Ohio]
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Ohio Department of Health (ODH) (1)
Association of Ohio Health Commissioners (AOHC) (2) Ohio Public Health Association (OPHA) (3)
Ohio Association of Community Health Centers (OACHC) (4) Health Policy Institute of Ohio (5)
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) The Ohio State University College of
Public Health (including the Center for Public Health Practice) (6) Ohio Society for Public Health Education (OSOPHE) (7) Ohio Environmental Health Association (OEHA) (8)
Kent State University College of Public Health (9)
12. Please indicate the frequency with which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and
conferences) offered by each listed organization.
State-Level Organizations [Wisconsin]
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) No Contact (4) I Don’t Know (5) Wisconsin Department of Health
Services (DHS) (1)
Wisconsin Public Health Association (WPHA) (2)
Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards (WALHDAB) (3)
Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association (WPHCA) (4) University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health (including the Population Health Institute) (5)
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (6)
Wisconsin Center for Public Health Education and Training (WiCPHET) (7) Wisconsin Environmental Health Association (WEHA) (8)
13. If there are other national or state-level organizations not listed in the tables above through which you, your organization, and/or your staff participate in workforce development activities (e.g., training and conferences), please list the organizations’ name(s) in the spaces below and indicate the frequency with which participation in workforce development activities occur for each.
Weekly (1) Monthly (2) Yearly (3) I Don’t Know (4)
Organization 1: (1) Organization 2: (2) Organization 3: (3) Organization 4: (4)
14. Please provide any additional comments regarding workforce development needs in your agency.
Conclusion
15. Was this survey delegated to you by your health officer?
No, I am the health officer (1) Yes (2)
If yes, please provide the following information about yourself.
Name (1) ________________________________________________
Email (2) ________________________________________________
Position Title (3) ________________________________________________
16. Please indicate if you would like the Region V Public Health Training Center (RVPHTC) to follow up with you regarding any of your agency’s training needs.
Check all that apply.
Yes, the RVPHTC can contact me about my agency’s training needs (1)
Yes, the RVPHTC can add me to their monthly newsletter list that includes information about available training (2)
No, I do not wish to receive follow up communications from the RVPHTC (3)